Looking back on our collective culture, we can trace the whole mental construct of a "Causal Entity" all the way back to "spirits" being a "factual" component of the deer, bison or, most importantly, a dead loved one. The mental construct evolved to "higher powers" controlling floods, herd migration, etc. Then we get "gods" of fertility, harvest, war, etc. Finally, after tweaking that follows logical cultural needs, we end up with a grand Causal Entity who made and/or controls everything....everything.
All of these constructs fulfilled very human requirements: explaining the unknown (magic), giving hope to people in very precarious situations (die and you live forever), tribe pride - "my god(s) are better than your god(s)" (still going on today with tragic consequences), unit cohesion (In God We Trust), and, of course, crowd control (Gays are evil).
Now, I am told that there are those among us who can't bring themselves to disavow the present complex human construct...even knowing that it morphed from earlier rather simple human constructs. Additionally, as is the nature of human constructs, it is inevitably going to morph into something else even more sublime....until the next time the definition of sublime changes.
So, if I follow this logic, since I can't disprove this latest human construct, then it could be true. Please.
So, if I follow this logic, since I can't disprove this latest human construct, then it could be true. Please.
To take just the last (present) conceptualization of the Causal Entity and declare it "possible" is beyond my rational understanding.
I do not consider myself arrogant. I just don't understand how someone could declare that there "may be" a Causal Entity who made and/or controls the universe, yet reject, say, a need to appease the volcano spirit with the slaughter of virgins, which is merely an earlier manifestation of the exact same phenomena.....our need to explain the unknowns in our existence.
Let me put it even simpler....long ago mankind invented bullshit as a means to understand stuff, then replaced it with other bullshit, then it got modified, then civilizations got more complex, and now we are left with a "singular" Causal Entity. And it is human's latest invention that some people can't bring themselves to reject? How can you not know for sure that something exists when you know that it evolved from a human mental concept in the first place? It's not a "we" believing or disbelieving "it"; it's disbelieving what "we" invented in the first place.
Thank you very much for your time....and I mean that.
So let's see what the internet has to say about this...
Gnosticism |ˈnästəˌsizəm|nouna prominent heretical movement of the 2nd-century Christian Church, partly of pre-Christian origin. Gnostic doctrine taught that the world was created and ruled by a lesser divinity, the demiurge, and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being, esoteric knowledge (gnosis) of whom enabled the redemption of the human spirit.
(The demiurge. Wow.............I may fucking puke.)
(The demiurge. Wow.............I may fucking puke.)
That, of course, is making a HUGE assumption...that there IS a cause for being born....a concept that goes far, far beyond arrogant.
Read this....it's pretty insightful.....
NOW STAY TUNED FOR YOUR REGULAR RANDOM SUNDAY ANTI-SERMON
The unwritten religious mantra...
I don't know why I found this funny, but I do...
Can we prove this is false?
I declare this Pope the coolest Pope I've ever known...
4 comments:
wrt the insightful agnosticism strip: exactly! Those who disbelieve are honest; those who claim to know (i.e. to have demonstrable proof either way) are not. Hence agnosticism: the state of being dubious about supernatural claims without dishonestly claiming certitude.
Unwarranted certitude isn't good rhetoric. Shouting "There are no gods!" is as persuasive to most believers as farting on them. It's better to simply point out the moral inconsistencies and heinous barbarities of the Bible. Banging the table and yelling "NO GODS FOR ME! GODS ARE STUPID" like an obstinate child doesn't engender much goodwill.
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wrt that bit at the top: replace "causal entity" and "spirit" and "god" with "self" and you'll be getting somewhere! The writer doesn't seem to consider the consequences of causality.
Saying "mankind invented something" implies that human minds erupt uncaused newness into the universe. But are human minds really "unmoved movers"? Aren't minds reducible to physical phenomena? If minds aren't reducible to the physical world, then whence minds? Do "souls" or other such non-physical woo animate our flesh and act as the source of "choices" and "free wills"?
I don't believe that. If one disbelieves in non-physical animating forces and applies that disbelief to one's own mind, it logically follows that the laws of physics are more "inventors" than one's own mind can ever be, because the laws of physics made minds possible, they still exist, and they predate human minds.
My point (surprise) is self-annihilative. We have the idea of "selves" – discrete, neatly-separated individual human units – because our minds reside in singular brains. However, our minds are obviously not merely or only our brains. Minds and memories are created by the physical world (e.g. unconscious photons entering your eyeballs are currently shaping part of your conscious mind, which will later go into memory).
If you're up for a thought experiment: relax in a quiet space and notice what it's like to "be" for a bit. As new thoughts and sensations occur to you, consider each as an object of attention and then let it fade away. Do this until the nothingness between thoughts and sensations becomes appreciable.
This makes it easy to notice that all thoughts and sensations are not caused or magicked into existence by your conscious mind; they simply occur to you. All sensations occur because of external stimuli and all thoughts simply well up from an ineffable, deep place beyond your reach (i.e. your unconscious physical neurology).
Even the most deliberate decisions aren't caused by your mind but rather by the unconscious material in which it resides. Therefore your unconscious body is not only a prison from which your mind cannot escape, but it (along with the environment around you) is also the complete and utter controller of your mind.
I'm a bumpkinoid sticks-raised chucklefuck! People far smarter than I thought of these things millenniums ago. Alas, the bullshitty idea of free will persists in many modern cultures, especially the highly-individualistic (and delusional) western ones.
Again, I belabor this stuff because I style myself a skeptic so I think the first person I should critique is myself. It follows that I should be most critical of my own beliefs (secular humanism) which are replete with definite notions of "self" and "mind".
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Do you know Sam Singleton Atheist Evangelist? You might like him.
For someone who says he doesn't believe in God, you sure do hate Him an awful lot, don't you?
I hate "him"? No, I hate an invented idea that caused virgins to be thrown in a volcano and gays to be persecuted.
I (to my great shame) used to call myself an agnostic once upon a time -- New England, that atheist's haven, cured me of that folly pretty quick.
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